Sarah came to visit Malin and me and she did not have an empty suitcase when she arrived :)
She brought me some of Jon Dunn
EasyKnits experiments that he had given Sarah in such an amount that she could spin it for the rest of her life:
Sarah's Blog. Look at January and also read about her amazing trip to Finland in February! Look at
Malin's blog too, even if she's the one that does things more than writes, but you never know... she has a nice camera that might have caught something. You should see her packing the car with all our things... they are still talking about it in Aberdeen...
I'm overwhelmed and happy. And wondering when I'll have time to spin and knit all this and all the other fibers and yarns in my stash. But, it's better to have a stash than not to have a stash, right? And I got another of those fancy Tesco bags with the ladybugs. I got Ladybug chocolate too, but for some reason I don't have any to show you :)) Now I only need a Schacht Ladybug to accompany the Tesco bags.
And I got a heap of yarn samples, also from EasyKnits, and some that Sarah has dyed:
This will be much fun to knit. I love knitting modules, in fact I think most of my bigger projects are module knits nowadays
One day during Sarah's stay we took a trip to a few yarn shops.
Kauhavan Kangasaitta is well known to weavers, but also knitters. This time I didn't want to buy yarn, but I (or, to be precise, Malin found them for me, as my glasses are out of focus because of a smaller accident...) found two needles for nalbinding:
The needle in the middle is Carelian Birch, the one below reindeer bone, and the third one from unknown wood I found in Tapion Kauppa
I think you'd like Kauhavan Kangasaitta if you like embroidery:
We took a look at handicraft from Southern Ostrobotnia in Rustoopuori in Seinäjoki, but I didn't take any pictures and they don't have a good website, so I won't write any more about it than it's a shop where professional crafters sell their products, or better said: show their products. You can find high quality handicraft to a high quality price.
We stopped at
Juustoportti, where almost everyone going from Vasa to Tampere stops to buy cheese. Juustoportti makes strong hard cheeses, goat cheeses and a very good Leipäjuusto, which is a fresh cheese slightly baked for a tasty surface. You can use that cheese just as it is with bread or biscuits, or slightly warm it up with a bit of fresh cream and eat it with jam as a dessert. In Finland we often eat cloudberry jam. Or you can use it instead of feta cheese. I love Juustoportti's goat cheeses!
In the Juustoportti building you can spend a lot of money if you want to, because there is a Marimekko shop, a Pentik shop, and a half fancy shoe shop. I was thinking ahead to our next shop, so I only bought a sheep that Sarah found (wonder if I had seen it through my off-focus glasses without her help?):
The sheep is sitting in Black Welsh Mountain I also got from Sarah. It's made of bamboo root. To the left is some Welsh Mountain you can't see in the photo. Oh I have so much nice fibers!
The other yarn shop we visited was
Lankatalo Tapion Kauppa. I have blogged about that shop earlier here:
LYS. It's big, it's in the middle of nowhere, and it's a bit too much. I did well, I bought only one bag of yarn that I really needed, i.e. some sock yarn for a blanket I started crocheting and frogged and then changed to knitting. Of course I didn't buy enough yarn the first time I went to Tapio, and luckily they still had it. There are pics in Sarah's blog!
We where quite happy and a bit tired, but we still did some spinning and knitting when we came home in the evening. When Sarah and Malin left hubby's and my dog Kasper fainted I think. At least he slept for almost one day. And when I said "fishyface" several days later he started looking for Sarah. I won't tell you why.
